the virtues,” in the dark symphony of contemplation. I give a passage from the book: _De altero veræ contemplationis modo_:-- “After this comes another mode of contemplation. “Those who have raised themselves into the absolute purity of their spirits by the love and reverence which they have for God, stand in His presence, with open and unveiled faces. And from the splendour of the Father a direct light shines on those spirits in which the thought is naked and free from similitudes, raised above the senses, above similitudes, above reason and without reason, in the lofty purity of the spirit. “This light is not God, but is a mediator between the seeing thought and God. It is a light-ray from God or from the Spirit of the Father. In it God shows Himself immediately, not according to the distinction and the mode of His persons, but in the simplicity of His nature and His substance; and in it also the Spirit of the Father speaks in thought, lofty, naked, and without similitude, ‘Behold me as I behold you.’ At the same time the keenness of the pure eyes is revealed, when the direct brightness of the Father falls upon them, and they behold the splendour of the Father--that is to say, the substance or the nature of God in an immediate vision, above reason and without distinction. “This brightness and this manifestation of God give to the contemplative spirit a real knowledge of the vision of God, as far as it can be enjoyed in this mortal state. In order that you may understand me clearly, I will give you an image from the senses. When you stand in the dazzling radiance of the sun, and turn away your eyes from all colour, from attending to and distinguishing all the various things which the sun illuminates, if then you simply follow with your eyes the brightness of the rays which flow from the sun, you shall be led into the sun’s very essence; and so likewise, if you follow with a direct vision the dazzling rays which stream from the splendour of God, they will lead you to the source of your creation, and there you will find nothing else but God alone.”